Field clinic ready for the rush

WAINWRIGHT, AB, CANADA

05.23.2017

WAINWRIGHT, Alberta, Canada – As ambulances enter the camp, all personnel inside the clinic operated by the 491st Area Support Medical Company of Santa Fe, New Mexico, rush out to offload simulated casualties as part of Maple Resolve 17, the Canadian Army’s premiere brigade-level validation exercise running May 14-29 at Camp Wainwright.

More than 650 U.S. Army Soldiers are providing a wide array of combat and support elements. These include sustainment, psychological operations, public affairs, aviation and medical units. Reserve units participating in Maple Resolve 17 are sharpening individual skill sets while enhancing overall unit readiness.

“Our mission here is to provide medical support for both real-world and simulated casualties,” said Spc. Tessa Snyder from Los Alamos, New Mexico, a combat medic and daytime non-commissioned officer in charge for the exercise.

The clinic swarms with medical personnel from the U.S. and Canadian armies working jointly to provide prompt care for the casualties. Throughout the training during Maple Resolve 17, the U.S. Army medics and their Canadian counterparts have been working toward unifying their strategies for tackling the missions.

“We’ve set up a few different training exercises to familiarize each other with the lingo and acronyms that we use so we can effectively communicate and get everyone on the same page,” explained Sgt. Jarrett Holsten, the non-commissioned officer in charge of evacuation procedures. “It’s especially important to me, having worked with other forces and realizing that we have these skills and they have those skills and seeing how our nations can integrate and cover each other’s back.”

The patients receive preliminary treatment, stabilizing them in preparation of evacuation to a larger hospital. Snyder says this efficiency is achieved by learning the practices of the Canadian medics. She believes learning about the Canadian medical clinics, their treatment plans, transfer of medical records and patient care helped the team get better and streamline the processes for patient care in the field exercises, thus improving the unit’s readiness for future real-world missions.

“I think it’s really important for a medical unit to train with other nations because when we deploy, we’re going to be working with people other than U.S. citizens and military personnel when we do things like set up clinics for humanitarian assistance,” Snyder said. “This gives us the opportunity to do that.”